Cabaret Mechanical Theatre – A Museum of Automata (mechanical sculpture)

Chris writes –

I’ve been a regular visitor to the Kinetica Museum in London since it’s opening. One of the things I always really liked were the automata donation boxes. For this reason I attended the Cabaret Mechnical Theatre workshop that gave an insight into the processes using cardboard prototyping (some photos).

Last night was the opening of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre’s first-ever major retrospective show, which includes over 80 automata and a number of previously unseen works from CMT’s illustrious The Ride of Life. Here are my photos. Open until 5th May.

I can safely say that this one of the most beautiful, playful and magical exhibitions I’ve been to for a long time. My photos don’t do it justice, you need to go and see them moving in real life. It has a real feeling of British crazy backyard inventor to it, mixed with detailed tiny models to large scale automata. It was surprised by many of the works, narratives that formed over time rather than simply looping playback. I can’t recommend this exhibition enough.

More & Cabaret Mechanical Theatre – A Museum of Automata (mechanical sculpture) – Link.

There are some links at the bottom of his post about how you can make your own automata too!